


Love is a verb

by Trojie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Consent Issues, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, M/M, Pre-Series, Protective Sam Winchester, Underage Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:56:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows what Dean does to keep them fed. And he's not stupid enough to think he can talk Dean out of it, but <i>take care of your brother</i> goes both ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a verb

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my hc_bingo card, prompt "Prostitution". Pre-series. Attendant warnings are therefore for consent issues and underage sex (depending on where you are - Dean is 20, Sam is 16).

Sam's not stupid. He knows what Dean does, between them running out of Dad's money and breakfast being on the table the next morning. It doesn't take him long to figure out what's going on, either. He knows what he smells on Dean's clothes, what those marks on Dean's skin are, what those looks Dean throws across bars at men mean. 

Sam asked questions about it, once upon a time, and Dean just told him he was working. He asked more questions, and Dean nearly hit him, but turned away instead, and then left. Sam knows better now. Dean can come and go as he pleases, because Sam doesn't ask any more. Just watches. 

See, Sam could keep asking, could lay all his cards on the table and say _Dean, I know what you're doing and it has to stop_ , could argue with him, but it won't work, and what if he goes and finds something worse to do? Hooking's a lot better than back-alley boxing, right? Dean can handle himself. So Sam keeps quiet. 

Until the night Dean comes home from 'work' hurt.

Dean thinks he has to take care of Sam – well it goes both ways.

***

Dean comes home and his footfalls are wrong - he's limping. And he clearly thinks Sam's asleep. Sam rolls over and tracks his brother's movements. Dean flicks on the bathroom light and as he turns and slips through the doorway Sam can see the bitemarks shadowing his throat. Sam's not blind. He clenches his fists under the thin motel blanket, willing himself to keep faking sleep, not say anything. Don't rock the boat, not with Dean. 

Behind the closed door, Dean throws up in the tiny, echoey motel bathroom. And suddenly Sam's not letting this go, not any more.

Sam gets out of bed quietly and pads to the kitchen, wets a dishtowel in warm water and follows the heavy, scratchy sound of his brother's breathing. He pushes the door open and Dean's sitting next to the toilet, hair spiked up all messy, like someone's had their hands in it. He looks up when Sam comes in and sits next to him, but he doesn't say a word like he doesn't have any words to say. That's okay. He doesn't need to talk, not with Sam.

Sam dabs at the bruises on Dean's skin with the warm, wet cloth. They're the shape of someone's mouth, one of them a clear ring of teeth-marks almost breaking the skin. Sam feels a sudden hot rush of anger through his veins that someone could use Dean like this. Monsters have been using Dean as a chewtoy almost as long as Sam's been alive - Dean helped Dad clean out a nest of ghouls in this goddamn town two weeks ago, before Dad left, and now one of the surviving residents thinks it's his right to add to the mess of marks Dean has to carry around on his skin. Sam hates every scar Dean has, always has done. This mark won't stay long, maybe, but Sam hates it too, just the same. 

'Sammy,' Dean says hoarsely, when Sam maybe pushes down a little too hard, trying to wipe away something that can't just be washed like that. 'Go easy, buddy.'

'Sorry,' Sam mutters, hand stilling. Dean pulls the towel from his fingers and wipes his own face, breathes harshly through the cloth for a moment, and then hands it back and pushes himself up onto his feet. He's still unsteady. Sam watches the way he limps. He's seen Dean injured enough to diagnose a hundred different hitches in Dean's step, tries to match the movement he sees to his mental catalogue, and doesn't like the fact that it doesn't fit. It's not a wrenched knee, not a popped hip, not a twisted ankle – he hasn't pulled a muscle, hasn't sprained a joint – he's just moving carefully. Too carefully. 

Dean leans on the vanity for a minute and then reaches for his toothbrush. Sam watches him from the floor, still cataloguing, until the slow, too-careful way Dean's moving gets to him again, and he unfolds off the dirty linoleum and gets up to hold him steady. Dean spits, rinses, looks up in the mirror and smiles a pencil-sketch of his usual brilliant smile, and that's _it_. Sam is done.

'C'mon,' Sam growls, and his fingers clamp around Dean's hips before he even thinks about it, and pulls him away from the basin. 'Bed.'

'Sam, I'm fine,' Dean says, wincing and pulling away from Sam's hands. 

'Bullshit,' Sam retorts. He lets Dean walk on his own but keeps a hand on the small of his back, keeps it there when Dean sits on the messed-up sheets of the bed furthest from the door, the one Sam was pretending to sleep in. That suits Sam fine, saves him having to have an argument. He wants Dean within reach right now, doesn't trust him even an inch away, let alone the three feet that stretch between the two beds. He pulls the blankets out so Dean can get under them, and then gently pushes Dean 'til he's lying on his side on the musty mattress. Sam gets into the bed behind him. Dean makes a noise like he didn't expect that, but he should have. 

'You're like a fucking space heater,' Dean grumbles. 'Will you get off of me?'

Sam ignores him and slides his hands under Dean's shirt, trying to work out if he's even more bruised on the skin he's been hiding, or if he's just stiff and sore, cos Sam can fix that, has done it a hundred times after hard hunts. It's why it's okay for him to touch Dean like this, in ways some people might say were less - or more - than brotherly. All they have is each other. Who else is gonna know their tells? Who else is gonna be able to say _no, you're pushing yourself too far?_ Cos they sure as shit aren't allowed to say it for themselves. 

Sam is allowed to hold Dean because someone has to. Sam is allowed to share a bed with Dean when space is at a premium because they're a team, they're practically one body between them anyway as far as reflex and sympathy and affinity go. They've been trained that way, so that if one of them takes a hit the other can compensate. That's all.

But Dean winces enough when Sam touches him that Sam gives up the half-formed idea of giving him a massage, and just hooks one arm over the shallow dip of Dean's waist, slides the other under his neck so they're back to belly, spooning, whatever you want to call it. Sam just likes feeling Dean safe against him from the ankles up. 'No, seriously dude, I'm gonna suffocate,' Dean says, but he pushes back into Sam's hold, doesn't pull away. 'What is _with_ you tonight?' 

'Nothing,' Sam says, on autopilot. Then. 'Don't like it when you come home like this,' he says, petulant and sulky, little-brother whining all the way because that works sometimes. 

'Yeah, well, it happens,' Dean says. Doesn't volunteer details.

'You gotta be more careful,' Sam mutters into the nape of his neck, feels his words ruffle the soft hairs at the base of Dean's skull. And maybe it's the space, the warmth between their bodies, the same thing that means he can't ever seem to lie to Dean when they're sparring, but he adds, 'Dean, promise me you'll be more careful. You can't let them do this to you.'

He doesn't ask Dean to _stop_ , because Dean won't, but he can ask him this. 

Dean freezes in his hold for a second, then relaxes muscle by muscle, forcing himself. As if Sam can't tell, as if he can't read Dean like a book. 'Sure,' he says, fake-easy. 'I'll just ask the monsters to go easier on me.'

Sam ignores that. He's done with plausible deniability. He can't ask Dean to stop. But he can stop it being a secret. They don't have secrets. He knows. And now Dean knows he knows. 'Either you take care of yourself,' he says, faux-threatens, 'Or I'm gonna start coming along to make sure you're okay.'

'Sam –'

'You think you're gonna be able to hunt like this?' Sam asks. He nudges up closer, runs his hands over Dean's chest and belly under the shirt and feels the way he twitches when Sam's fingers hit sore spots. Dean's breathing speeds up. 'You think you're gonna be able to explain this to Dad?' he adds, and he bends his head just a little so that he can press his mouth where that bitemark lies.

Dean's breathing speeds up. Sam's walking that line again, the one he's been tightrope-walking on since he was fourteen. They're practically one body. Sometimes Sam wants it to be more literal than it is.

'I know what you're doing,' Sam breathes. 'I don't wanna fight about it, Dean, cos I know you're not gonna stop. But you gotta let me help.'

'Kinda defeats the purpose,' Dean says. Sam's hands slide down further. 'Sam, you can't.'

'Can,' Sam argues. 'You need me to watch your back.'

'Fuck off.' Dean moves like he's going to get out of the bed, and no. Sam locks his arms tighter, lips that bruise-bite again. 'Sammy, let me go.'

'No,' Sam says. 'I'm coming with you next time,' he says. He means it. Dean better accept that.

Dean twists, rolls and winces and ends up facing Sam, chest to chest and knees to knees and space between their hips, bent into a cage made out of each other. In the dark Sam can barely make out his face, doesn't need to. 'I'm trying to keep you safe,' Dean says tiredly. 'You know what I'm doing, then you gotta know why.'

'And _you_ gotta see why I can't let you do it without backup,' Sam pushes. 'I won't get involved. I won't watch. But I'm gonna be there, Dean, because this?' He ghosts his fingers down Dean's body, presses over Dean's bruises again, lets him wince just because he has to make this point. 'This has to stop. People wanna pay for things you wanna sell? Fine. But they don't get to take shit that doesn't belong to them, and they sure as fuck don't get to do this to you.' His hand slides down to cup Dean's ass, and Dean lets out a choked whimper. 'I wish I'd been there,' Sam growls low. 'The asshole who hurt you like this? I'd've fucking killed him.'

'S'just sore,' Dean mutters. 'Not a goddamn invalid, Sam.'

'I know you're not,' Sam says, forcing himself to pull his hand back up above Dean's hips. 'But this is not. Happening. Again.' He reaches up to cup Dean's jaw in his hands, force him to look Sam in the eye, understand just how serious he is about this. 'Don't make me tail you twenty four-seven.'

The fight goes out of Dean then, the way it only ever does when it's just them and there's no-one to see. 'Okay, Sammy,' he says. 

That's all Sam wanted to hear. Not that it would have mattered to him if Dean had refused. 

_Take care of your brother._ John always says it to Dean before he leaves. But Sam hears it too.


End file.
